Commercial air service returns to Salem for the first time in 15 years

For the first time in 15 years, passenger flights are once again taking off from the Salem Municipal Airport. Avelo Airlines recently began providing flights to Las Vegas and Hollywood Burbank Airport in Southern California. The ultra low-cost carrier is the first to provide commercial flights in Salem since Delta stopped its service to the city during the 2008 financial crisis.

Salem Mayor Chris Hoy recently returned from the inaugural flight to Las Vegas, along with Travel Salem CEO and President Angie Villery. They join us with more details on what the new air traffic could mean for the city.

This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. For the first time in 15 years, passenger flights are once again taking off from the Salem Municipal airport. Over the weekend Avelo airline started flying to Las Vegas and Burbank. The ultra low-cost carrier is the first to provide commercial flights from Salem’s McNary Field since Delta stopped its service back in 2008. Salem Mayor Chris Hoy recently returned from the inaugural flight to Las Vegas along with Travel Salem CEO and President Angie Villery. They both join us now. It’s good to have both of you on the show.

Chris Hoy: Thanks for having us.

Angie Villery: Delighted to be here.

Miller: So as I noted, you are both on this inaugural flight to Las Vegas. What was it like?

Hoy: It was great. There was so much excitement at the airport, so many community members came out to celebrate. And on the plane, people were just really excited to be able to just get to the airport within 15 minutes of pretty much wherever you live in Salem because the airport is centrally located. You can get there in probably 15 -20 minutes, just a lot, a lot more convenient for folks who live here in the Mid Valley to be able to fly. There’s a lot of excitement for it

Miller: And Angie, how was flying out of Salem different for you than it would have been to fly out of Portland?

Villery: Well, to be able to have an aerial view of our community which is just so beautiful, so green and lush and all the agriculture here and the rivers. It was really beautiful. And I was just gonna say what the mayor just said of the pilots who were celebrating with us when we were taking off. It was really a beautiful experience, just the energy, the positivity for our community. To finally be connected to the world through this commercial air service was a wonderful, beautiful experience.

Miller: You mentioned finally being connected. Mayor Hoy, why did Delta pull out of Salem back in 2008?

Hoy: As I understand it, that whole service was based on a totally different model. Those were 50 passenger regional jets. And fuel prices around that time went up significantly and that model really no longer was viable anywhere. If you look around, you don’t really see those regional jets flying anywhere anymore.

Miller: We used to call them puddle jumpers.

Hoy: Yeah, they can’t put enough people on those to really pay for the fuel. So this service is a totally different model. It’s 737s, so 150 or so [person] capacity, on every plane. And so it really just changes the whole business model. The service that Delta was offering was great, but it just no longer was viable, given the fuel prices back in the day.

Miller: Well, Angie, how did the relationship with Avelo come to be?

Villery: That’s kind of an interesting story. We originally started this work, this recruitment effort about five and a half years ago. We were looking for a major carrier to a major hub. So this was obviously prior to COVID and we did have interest back then. But we are a market where the airlines would be coming in and starting service. And so that’s very different from having an existing airport and carriers adding service.

So we knew we were in a little bit of a different position. But after COVID, things really shifted. The airlines had to shift their strategic ways. They were growing service across the country. And so we really became attractive, almost like a Portland South airport for the ultra low-cost carrier segment. And that was really exciting for us because, very affordably, you can connect to the LA area, to Vegas, on a wonderful aircraft. They’re highly fuel efficient and they’re newer aircraft. So the experience, as a whole, is wonderful. But it’s also cost effective. So it was a great journey and we have other carriers that are interested in our market. But we were really excited about Avelo taking interest in Salem. Believe it or not, Burbank and Vegas are in our top four destinations of where people in this region fly to, typically out of Portland. So they’re delivering exactly what this community needs. And we’re very thankful for that.

Miller: That makes sense. So they did some kind of market research to figure out where to fly and that’s how they chose Vegas and Burbank as the first two?

Villery: Yes. And actually, we had done quite a bit of research ourselves here in our community to find out where people were flying. So we were able to also provide them with a lot of data that showed where people in our communities here fly. So they had a lot of confidence coming in. They knew that they would strike gold here and, as of right now, it’s all proven out to be true. So we’re really thankful for that.

Miller: What have you heard about booking so far? It’s one thing for there to be an inaugural weekend. There’s often excitement about something new, but what about sustained interest going forward?

Villery: No, that’s been interesting as well. When we first launched service, there were about 4,000 bookings at that time. And according to Avelo, Salem has been their most successful launch in the Western United States. So the service took off with a bang and, as we understand it, flights are full and things are going very well. So we’re really optimistic about continuing to grow that service. And the Mayor and I have also heard from Avelo that they have added capacity to the holidays already. And they’re also looking at other markets right now as well. So those are all good signs for us.

Miller: I want to hear about those other markets in just a second. But Chris Hoy, what kind of airport upgrades did you have to do to bring this kind of air travel to Salem?

Hoy: We have a very old terminal. It’s quite small and what we wanted to do, [although] this is a little bit of a risk for the city, was, I don’t want to say just minimally necessary, but almost minimally necessary in order to federalize the airport and start service. Because we wanted to see if the community was going to support this. Is this something that’s going to really be a success? And so we had to work with the TSA and the FAA to do the federalization process with the security plan and all those things.

But then we also had to make some physical upgrades. The last time we had service here was before the TSA equipment had gotten so robust. So we had to reinforce the floor in the screening area so their equipment would not shake. It had to be on a concrete slab. So we literally had to tear apart the floor and pour a concrete slab so that their equipment had solid ground to sit on so there was no shaking.

Miller: I mean, like the scanners that we all have to go through, they were too heavy for the old floor?

Hoy: Right.

Miller: What about the larger planes themselves? I mean, you mentioned that before, there were 50-passenger planes. Now we’re talking about well over 100. So we’re just talking about longer heavier planes. Was the infrastructure ready for those planes?

Hoy: In terms of the runway and those sorts of things, we’re good to go. The Salem Airport is a very active airport. There are 45,000 takeoffs and landings every year before we ever relaunched commercial passenger air service. You know, we have Garmin at our airport, we have the National Guard. So there’s a lot of activity there before we had commercial passenger air service. So the physical part with the plane, takeoff and landing, that was all great. The part that we’re having challenges with is the passenger holding area not really being designed for these large aircraft. And so it’s pretty crowded in there.

But if this thing really does well, that’ll be probably the first thing we do is expand that passenger waiting area and that sort of thing. [Currently] if we were to have two planes at once there or something like that it would be really tight. And our parking is pretty tight as well. So there are things, from the passenger experience perspective, that we need to work on. And we knew that going in. But we wanted to just get started and see if the community was ready for this. And so we tried to do that with as minimal cost as possible, but yet still have a quality experience.

Miller: Right around the time that Avelo announced they were going to be bringing passenger travel back to McNary Field, to your Salem Airport, they also announced that, just seven months after they started flying from Dayton, Ohio to Florida, they were going to cancel those flights. They were going to suspend those, which is just one example of this business saying we thought we would do this and we’re changing our mind. Did that put any fear in your heart?

Villery: That’s such a good point to make honestly. I came into commercial air service recruitment brand new, as green as it gets. I didn’t understand the landscape and I’ve learned so much. The airline industry is so dynamic. It’s changing almost daily, in terms of their strategies and how they work. Our market, for instance, one of the things that we did to ensure that our carrier, Avelo, would be successful was to generate what is called a Market Revenue Guarantee Fund. And that has about $1.2 million in it. $850,000 of that came from a SCASDP (Small Community Air Service Development Program) grant which is a federal grant. And then our business leaders and individuals here in the Salem area raised another $350,000.

So that MRG Fund is there to support the airline and make sure that they’re successful. So things like that really do help new services, like what we’re experiencing here in Salem, take off and have the time to really gain the momentum it needs. So no, to be honest, I wasn’t concerned when I heard what happened in Ohio. I feel for that market though because I know how much you invest and how excited you are to get service. But here in Salem, we feel very, very confident that we have the right mix. We have the right folks that are flying out of our market here - 1,200 are flying every day out and 1,200 are flying everyday in. So, we have the confidence that the data, the carrier, where we’re flying to is just all the right mix.

Miller: So why would people be choosing Salem’s airport over Eugene if they’re going to go south or Portland, if they were going to go north?

Hoy: Let me take a shot at that one, Dave, if I can. To give you an example, when we landed Sunday night, from the time we were wheels down, literally just touched down, until I was home petting my dogs, was 30 minutes. And I checked a bag. So we taxied, we deplaned, I got my luggage, I used the restroom, I got my car and I drove home. And that happened, because I watched my clock.

Miller: Is your home inside the airport? (laughter)

Hoy: No, it is not. I live over in East Salem. The airport’s in South Salem, but it’s pretty centrally located. And so it was 30 minutes and I was home. And that’s why, the convenience alone. Being able to be dropped off at the airport conveniently. When I go to PDX, and I fly out a few times a year, it’s a minimum one hour and that depends on what’s going on in Wilsonville. As you know, the I-5 can back up there. So it’s a minimum one hour just getting to the airport to get parked, from Salem.

Miller: Angie briefly, you mentioned that there could be more interest in other destinations. So, what’s next? Where else might people be able to fly to if Burbank or Las Vegas are not on their top list?

Villery: We have always talked about a couple of other markets. There were four specifically that we know that our market flies to. So it was Burbank or LA, Vegas, San Francisco and Phoenix. And so those other markets are also on the radar and there are actually others that are being discussed as well that I’m not free to share. But we do have confidence that our service here will expand over time and grow to really serve the communities here. We have about two counties and 28 cities plus north and south that we believe we’ll be serving. So probably three quarters of a million people will travel out of our airport. We know that it will take about 100,000 cars off the road. So we’re also happy about the green footprint that this brings to our communities because we’re mindful of that as well.

Miller: You mean people who were going to fly otherwise and are going to drive less to get to the airport from which they’ll take off, right? That’s the cars off the road.

OK, Angie Villery and Chris Hoy, thanks very much.

Hoy: Thank you.

Villery: Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.

Miller: Angie Villery is president and CEO of Travel Salem. Chris Hoy is the mayor of Salem. They joined us to talk about the return of commercial air travel to Salem.

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